The company informed its customers Friday that beginning Tuesday it would no longer send security-related notifications via email because of "changing governmental policies concerning the issuance of automated electronic messaging."

The decision would have affected notifications about upcoming security bulletins, security bulletin summaries, new security advisories, and revisions to security bulletins and advisories.

"In lieu of email notifications, you can subscribe to one or more of the RSS feeds described on the Security TechCenter website," Microsoft said at the time.

Even though the company didn't reveal what specific governmental policies led to its decision, there was speculation that the reason might be a new Canadian antispam law that goes into effect today and carries penalties as high as $1 million for individuals and $10 million for businesses.

Regardless of the cause, Microsoft seems to have sorted out the problem and has decided to restore the notification service.

The company reviewed its processes after announcing the change and will keep sending the email notices, it said Monday.